Cinema Park nets $20 mil plex loan

World Brief

World Bank Group member the Intl. Finance Corp. will give a $20 million loan to Russian film production, distribution and exhibition company Cinema Park to build 20 multiplexes.

Total cost of the project is estimated at $84 million. Cinema Park will acquire or lease space in shopping malls and entertainment centers as well as other buildings in cities including Moscow and St Petersburg.

Project sponsor is the Interros Group, one of Russia’s biggest private financial groups, which owns 80% of Cinema Park.

The remaining 20% is owned by Russian film studio Studio Trite, run by producer-director Nikita Mikhalkov (“Burnt by the Sun”).

Cinema Park has one six-screen theater, MDM-Kino, in Moscow and nine multiplexes in various stages of development across the country.

By the end of 2004, the company will have more than 70 screens across Russia.